Best Supporting Actress (2007)

Rebecca Simon in A Bright Room Called Day at Florida Atlantic University

Straddling a fine line between Cyndi Lauper and Johnny Rotten, gleefully decrying the evils of the world like Hannah Arendt screaming on an amphetamine skillet, Rebecca Simon's portrayal of Zillah Katz distilled all the heavy politics of Tony Kushner's anti-fascist dialectic into a punk sneer and a girlish laugh. When she sang a love song to a picture of Adolf Hitler, she communicated the seductions of totalitarianism more completely than Arendt ever did, and the full-bodied lust she put into the number would have made even Kushner nervous. Simon's only a grad student now, but this year, she made most pros look like they were phoning it in. Expect big things.